Motorists who drive in crowded metropolitan areas often have difficulty locating a vacant space to park their vehicle. During busy traffic hours, most legally marked and metered parking spaces are often occupied. Motorists who are seeking a space are often compelled to repeatedly circle city blocks while waiting for a space to become available. These motorists often obstruct traffic by driving very slowly or frequently stopping in a travel lane to wait for a potential space to open. They also create a substantial hazard to other drivers and pedestrians by focusing their attention on parking spaces thereby reducing their awareness of pedestrians and other normal road hazards.
Mechanical parking meters which have no sensing capability are being replaced in many cities by electronic meters which are capable of sensing the presence or absence of a vehicle in a particular parking space. Any number of known sensor technologies including infra red sensors, ultrasonic sensors, magnetic sensors or machine vision systems may be used to detect the presence or absence of vehicles in particular parking spaces. Electronic modules are known which can be adapted to conventional mechanical parking meters to add a vehicle detecting capability to the meters. For example U.S. Pat. No. 5,966,345 discloses electronic modules which include vehicle sensors for enhancing the operation of conventional parking meters. Electronic parking meters which are capable of sensing the presence or absence of a vehicle can be used to reset a meter when a vehicle leaves a space. Revenue for a municipality is thereby enhanced at the expense of motorists who could otherwise use the previous occupant's remaining meter time.
Electronic parking meters are known that are connected to a network. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,094 discloses a computerized parking meter system which comprises a host computer and a plurality of parking meters having supersonic metal sensors. These computerized systems detect the presence of vehicles and register parking time so that overtime parking can be accurately recorded. Limited data is provided to a municipality and is used primarily for control and evaluation of parking fine collections. Data that is collected on known parking meter networks is not collected, maintained, or formatted in a manner that could assist motorists to locate parking spaces. Electronic parking meters and networks according to the prior art do not provide timely parking space availability data in a useful format to local motorists.
Electronic databases of street maps of many cities and towns are available to computer users on CD ROM and on the internet. Many available electronic street maps allow users to select various scales or zoom levels to view an area map. The location of a particular address may be graphically indicated on an electronic map by superimposing a symbol such a star at the map location of the particular address. For example MAPQUEST.COM provides an internet web-site wherein a user may enter any address and be provided almost instantly with a detailed street map of the area surrounding the address wherein a star is superimposed on the map to indicate the precise location of the address. Certain electronic maps are available for use on hand held computer devices such as PALM hand held devices, available from Palm, Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., and vehicle mounted mobile computer systems. Electronic map databases such as those provided by MAPQUEST.COM provide no real-time status information such as parking space availability data.
Electronic street maps have been integrated with vehicle global positioning systems (GPS) to provide accurate real-time vehicle location and navigation information to motorists. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,760,742 discloses a graphic mapping system disposed within a vehicle and integrated with an automatic position locating system. U.S. Pat. No. 5,559,520 discloses an information system for automatically providing mobile vehicles with information related to their location. Mobile computer systems having electronic maps and GPS capability are available as standard or optional equipment in several automobile models. Such mobile computer systems are heretofore unable to assist a motorist to find a parking space.